get up, our meeting adjourned, until she said, "I saw you rescinded yo

l one summer, Spain the next, India, Thailand, Japan, my passport cluttered with all the places we'd been together over the years. I had taken the exact same week off every

ou're kidding. Lola, you haven

it was a good distraction from... everything, and if I kept concentrating on the things i

year to the Maldives. Had a great massage there-I ca

d a strained smile across my face. "I'm fine, really-and besides, Boston in the Fall is coming out that

ke your damn accrued vacatio

t..

rescind your re

e, though," I said, trying not to

igure out what else you want to do. Half of our collection is travel guides-b

don't thin

a sigh, and took off her glasses. They hung from a bea

time she asked me to close the door, I found out she fired the marketing de

he wore dark mascara and darker eyeliner around her eyes, and they always made her l

s it a new book? A celebrity memoir? Was Strauss s

nd of the summer, but I only want to go kn

eard correctly. "Y

es

& Adder without Monique was like a body without a soul-a bookshelf without any books. She built this company with

But I'm not going to leave if this ship'll sink without me. I've put too much of my life here," she added, seemingly as an afterthought to her name on the busines

as dry. "O

s and acquisitions this summer, to see how you fare. I'll be

can manage wi

and then she laughed. "Oh, n

she told me how hard I worked, how exemplary I was, how I was exactly the kind of woman she'd been at my age, and that this was

small, but I would not wish that on anyone else. After all, they're not me," she added. "Depending on your performance this summer, however, I'm inclined to put you

he didn't expect me to say anything, as she put h

acation before you start your new job. I'll get

a squeak. My head was spinni

week? Something tells me Juliette is going

stood. "I'll get that right to you,"

Monique dropped that bomb that she might r

ant to thi

stine, what Dave called a "one-box walkout." Meaning if I

os, my watercolor postcards of Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, a cemetery in Queens. A Shakespeare b

ng numb. Out of my league f

g. And she wanted m

st tig

h big doe eyes and cherry-red lipstick --trudged back to h

up again," s

x from under the desk and offere